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June 2nd:
June 2, 2013
Call: Luke 10: 25-28
Text: Acts 4: 32-37; 5: 1-11
Read: W&S 196
Family Share Plan
It was just the other night when I told a wedding couple that
I had learned a lot more about marriage
From my experiences as a lawyer
Dealing divorcing and divorced people.
Than from my experiences as a pastor marrying couples
For what is needed for success in marriage
Is most obvious when it is missing
And what I believe is needed in marriage is
Love, respect, sharing, and commitment.
Love and respect are obvious.
Sharing a bit less
But commitment is an unpopular word
in this fast changing world of innumerable options where,
with regularity people switch
hairdressers and phone companies
And whose minds seem to have been reprogrammed to
Self-indulgently want the newest and the most distinctive.
In a marriage, if either party is not committed
To keeping love alive
To willingly share responsibilities, power, and possessions
Or To continue to respect and earn the other's respect
The marriage will not be successful
While that doesn't necessarily mean splitting up
it does mean that it won't do what it could have done
If the necessary commitment had been present.
But I share that observation and use the example of marriage
Only because our relationship
with Christ with the church and within the church
is very much like a marriage
for the very same things are needed
for a church to be successful.
Now, the church has many levels:
The universal
Which includes all Christian denominations
The denominational
Which for us includes all UMC congregations
And The congregational - Which is most visibly us
Including those not with us this morning
For health, transportation, or other reasons.
And at each of those levels if it is to be successful
The church needs love
The church needs respect
The church needs sharing
and The church requires commitment
If either - or any - party is not committed
To keeping that love alive
To willingly share responsibilities, power, and possessions
Or To continue to respect others and earn the respect of others
The church will not be successful
That doesn't necessarily mean coming apart at the seams.
But it does mean that we won't do what we could have done.
If there had been the necessary commitment.
And that is where our scripture from Acts comes in
This morning's scripture is about the early church.
But we read it to learn about today's church
As we do so, however,
We need to remember our call to worship from Luke's gospel
where, in a different take
than the one Matthew uses to tell the story,
the man talking with Christ said
that to inherit eternal life one must
Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your strength,
and with all your mind
And your neighbor as yourself,
And Jesus replied,
"You have given the right answer,
Do this and you will live."
With that as the prelude to the story,
we now hear about the early church [Acts 4: 32-37]
Luke tells us that the whole group of those who believed
Were of one heart.
Luke tells us that the whole group of those who believed
Were of one soul.
Luke does not tell us that the whole group of those who believed
Were of one mind Or of one strength.
This was not an homogeneous group
They had their disagreements
Some were stronger than others
But What they had in common was that they had given
their hearts and their souls to Christ.
They were committed to living and serving, and sacrificing
As Christ had taught them
With lives of love and respect for God
With lives of love and respect for each other
They were committed to living and serving, and sacrificing
By sharing with each other and with others.
Opportunities and responsibilities
Gifts, resources, and ideas
Authority and power
Time and energy
Trust and honesty
They were like the family share plans some have for their cell phones
A limited number of minutes or gigabytes
To be used among two or more people
If one member of the family share group
uses a disproportionate amount the others will suffer
And that was the case in the family of the early church as well.
That is why Luke tells us the jarring story of Ananias and Sapphira
Right after the story of the sharing and committed Christians
And of Barnabas selling his property
To give money to the church
[5: 1-11]
As I read this story, I first ask two questions
Question number One:
Who am I more like:
Barnabas or Ananias?
Question number Two:
Who are the people in this congregation more like?
This story - and those questions - are not about money
They are about attitude
They are about commitment and priority
For Ananias was not punished for keeping a portion of the proceeds of the liquidation of his asset
He was punished for his lack of honesty
About having done so
And Sapphira who knew what was going on
Was punished only when she refused to come clean when given a chance
They were in a family share plan
And when they gobbled up the minutes and the gigabytes
They lied about it.
Their commitment was to themselves
Not to God
Not to Christ's church and the people who made it up
They did not love God with all they were
And they didn't love their neighbors as themselves.
Do we?
Do we love and respect God
When things are going bad? Or do we blame God?
Do we love and respect God
When things are going well? Or do we claim credit?
Do we love and respect each other
When we disagree
With worship style or ministry?
Do we love and respect each other
When we want to hold on to power
Instead of sharing it with newer members of our community?
How committed are we?
To our relationship with God?
To our relationship with Christ's church?
To our relationship with the congregation
And the people who make it up?
Again I ask myself - and suggest you ask yourselves:
Who am I more like: Barnabas or Ananias?
Who are you more like?
But I guess we only really ask one question,
"Is our commitment to Jesus Christ strong enough
that are we willing to share, to serve, and to sacrifice?"
For those, along with love and respect, are requirements you and I accepted
When we signed up for God's family share plan.